


Dinner and Murder?

by DesertVixen



Category: Clue (1985), Murder She Wrote
Genre: 1980s mystery, Dinner Parties can be Murder, Gen, Two Minute Mysteries cameo, a little Poirot but just trappings, post-Clue canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26052817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: Miss Scarlet attends another dinner party...
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15
Collections: Crossworks 2020





	Dinner and Murder?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TKodami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKodami/gifts).



She should have known better. 

Surely, she had learned her lesson about invitations to dinner parties full of people she didn’t know, but Catherine Shelley had thought this one would be okay. After all, her editor had verified that they knew Mrs. Sydney and if you couldn’t trust your editor, you were in pretty deep trouble. Mrs. Sydney was a known eccentric – a wealthy known eccentric – with too much time on her hands. Cat’s editor had explained that she wanted to have a splashy social event to raise money for a new library, and had decided that the current Poirot-Oliver controversy would be just the ticket. 

The controversy centered on a pair of dueling biographers for the famous detective Hercule Poirot and mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver, with an argument that centered on a case they had both been involved in at a country fete. Cat had to admit she enjoyed reading Ariadne Oliver’s work – Sven Hjerson was a little ridiculous, but he made a good diversion – but Hercule Poirot’s memoirs had been short on the kind of action she preferred. She had been a little confused as to why Mrs. Sydney was contacting her, as her letter was somewhat scatterbrained. A call to Mrs. Sydney’s efficient secretary had cleared it up.

Mrs. Sydney wanted to invite the pair of writers to a debate. They would have a splashy dinner, they would tell their story to a panel of other writers – which was why Cat had been invited – and the writers would render a decision.

It sounded like a good time. Plus, who didn’t love a fancy dress-up dinner? She’d chosen a slinky dark blue sequined number – the current fashion for shoulder pads was just not her thing – and enjoyed the luxurious car sent to pick her up. If this was what it took for someone to be charitable, Cat was willing to contribute her time.

Everything had seemed fine at first. 

A lot had happened since that stormy night in 1954, when she had both been exposed and relieved of her blackmailer. She had been given a strict warning, however, that a blind eye would not be turned to future criminal acts – as long as she kept her silence about that night. She supposed it was sort of like a reverse blackmail, but since she wouldn’t be paying for silence anymore, her savings would carry her for a little while. “Miss Scarlet” would be no more.

She’d always loved to read, mystery novels with snappy dialogue, and she had a weakness for lurid true-crime magazines. Finally she had decided to try her hand at writing – not the Harriette Wilson-inspired work she had dreamed about some nights as she watched stupid men spilling their secrets to women who were not stupid, but a mystery novel about a group of people invited to a mysterious party.

It had been a huge hit, and over the years she’d written more, always with a little bit of true crime at the core. Her pen name – Scarlet Wilson – was her own little tongue-in-cheek nod to her own past, although she was careful never to put too much truth in her books.

She had been amused to see that “Mrs. White” was one of the guests. Her fellow blackmail victim had also turned to writing, lurid romances full of secret passions and purple prose. They weren’t a half-bad way to while away a rainy afternoon or a nice hot bath – an opinion many, many women shared about Blanche Lindsay books. Later ones had started to include a paper-thin mystery plot designed to get the heroine’s bodice ripped, which Cat supposed explained her presence at this party full of mystery writers, dressed in her trademark black.

The rest of the panel consisted of Jessica Fletcher, a retired schoolteacher from Maine whose books were pretty good, Jamie Goodwinter, a former reporter who wrote about a detective whose pair of Siamese cats did most of the mystery solving, and Helena Balaclava, a former college librarian who wrote the most deliciously screwball mysteries. 

They had enjoyed a delightful cocktail hour, where Blanche either flirted outrageously with the few men in attendance or making catty comments about the other women’s fashion choices. The dinner had been extravagant and delicious, and then they had prepared to adjourn to the library for the debate. After a visit to the powder room, Cat had been prepared for some coffee, maybe a light dessert, but not for the sprawled body on the floor.

She wondered what Hercule Poirot or Ariadne Oliver would have made of the figure on the library floor, with a glittery something – Cat assumed a jeweled dagger – stuck in her chest. Oliver’s biographer Merry Despard had been a shrew of a woman with an acid tongue, but Cat thought murder was a bit much. 

John Hastings, Poirot’s biographer and son of the detective’s long-time confidant, recoiled from the body. “I found her just like this,” he said loudly. “I didn’t do it!” 

Cat thought he sounded just like “Mr. Green”. 

“Were you afraid she was going to win the debate, Mr. Hastings?” Blanche drawled. Cat hadn’t heard her come in.

“No, no! I just wanted to review my notes in the library before we started. I swear I didn’t do it.”

Cat was inclined to believe him, but it was a pretty short window of time to commit murder. 

Mrs. Sydney entered the room and gave a bloodcurdling scream. “Murder!”

Cat studied the scene for a moment, then knelt by the body and taking hold of her wrist. Then she frowned, and was about to say something, but Jessica Fletcher had decided to check the body as well. She gave Cat a sharp glance.

Mrs. Sydney was still wringing her hands and despairing, before exclaiming brightly, “How lucky I actually have several detectives in the house! Surely one of you can solve the crime!”

“If a crime had actually been committed, possibly,” Cat said with a laugh. “Were you trying to unnerve your opponent, Ms. Despard?”

“You can get up now,” Jessica Fletcher said calmly.

Cat had to give the “corpse” credit. She didn’t betray by a blink that she had heard either woman. She could hold her breath but couldn’t stop her pulse.

“After all,” Jessica said as she pulled the glittering knife free and revealed it to be a prop blade, “You could hardly have been killed with this.”

Merry Despard sat up, and Cat swore she could see the wheels turning in her head. The woman had some brains and guts. Then she shook her head. “It’s no use, Mrs. Sydney. I don’t think you can fool this crowd.”

As one, the group turned to Mrs. Sydney. Jessica Fletcher found her voice first.

“Perhaps you would like to explain yourself, Mrs. Sydney?”

At the end of the evening, Cat found herself chatting with Jessica as they waited for the fleet of hired cars to ferry them home.

“What made you suspect the knife?” Cat asked. “I knew something was wrong, but the knife looked pretty serious.”

“It seemed too theatrical,” Jessica said with a sigh. “There’s no displays of the sort in the library, and Mr. Hastings hardly seems the type to carry a jeweled dagger around with him.”

Cat nodded. It was the sort of solid logic that characterized Mrs. Fletcher’s fictional murders. 

“Somewhat of a waste of an evening,” Jessica remarked as they stood on the doorstep, watching the cars pull up. “Dinner was good, and I did enjoy the company.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” Cat assured her. “I’ve been to much worse parties.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope you liked it! It's set sometime in the 1980s MSW run. Jamie Goodwinter and Helena Balaclava are nods to Lilian Braun Jackson's Cat Who series and Charlotte MacLeod's Peter Shandy series (although all of her screwballs are good). I couldn't quite fit Poirot in, hence why I decided to use that as a plot point. And Mrs. Sydney, of course, is a tip to the Two Minute Mysteries series, in which that good lady often tries to get the detectives to fall for her staged crimes.


End file.
